The Old Furniture Book | by Hannah Hudson Moore
With a sketch of past days and ways. With one hundred and twelve illustrations
| Title | The Old Furniture Book |
| Author | Hannah Hudson Moore |
| Publisher | Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers |
| Year | 1903 |
| Copyright | 1903, Frederick A. Stokes Company |
| Amazon | The Old Furniture Book |
By N. Hudson Moore, Author Of "The Old China Book"
Second Edition
"To a Lady Who Shall Be Named Later."
Illustrations- Frontispiece - Hall in King Hooper House, Danvers, Mass. CHAPTER I (Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc) FIGURE 1. Old Oak Bedstead 2. Olive-Wood Chest 3. Old Oak Chest 4. Chest with One D...
- Chapter I. Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc
- WITH the revival of interest in all antiques, which is so widely spread at this time, any of us who chance to own an old piece of furniture feel an added degree of affection for it if we can give it...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 2
- Japanning. This style of treating wood and metal derives its name from the fact of its being an imitation of the famous lacquering of Japan, although the latter is prepared with entirely different mat...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 3
- Of Elizabethan times there are several noted beds extant, the finest of them being known as the Great Bed of Ware mentioned by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. It is seven feet high and ten feet squa...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 4
- The chests of the Jacobean time, enriched with mouldings, panellings, and drop ornaments, are by no means unknown in America. They are furnished with drawers, cupboards, and then drawers above, making...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 5
- Figure 3 represents a good specimen of one of these early chests. It is of English make, entirely of oak, the boards of the bottom being as heavy and solid as lead. The top is a heavy plank of oak wit...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 6
- There are chests which are peculiar to certain localities, notably in New England, which were doubtless made by a single cabinet-maker, his workmen and apprentices. They are almost entirely confined t...
- Old Oak, Old Leather, Turkey Work, Etc. Part 7
- Another style of leather chair is shown in Figure 7, and its solidity is a great contrast to the Spanish chair previously shown. The woodwork is turned, and the heavy underbracing shaped, while the se...
- Chapter II. Dutch Furniture
- Miss Singleton, in her exhaustive book Furniture of Our Forefathers, says that probably the first pieces of furniture that were landed on the shores of the Hudson came in the ship Fortune, and were ...
- Dutch Furniture. Part 2
- In 1686 a rich Dutch burgher in New Amsterdam owned a house of eight rooms over cellars filled, no doubt, with choice liquors and schnapps, and the rooms above set out with chairs and tables, cabinets...
- Dutch Furniture. Part 3
- May you should see the woods and Fields so curiously bedeckt with Roses and an innumerable multitude of delightful Flowers not only pleasing to the eye but smell. That you may behold Nature contendin...
- Dutch Furniture. Part 4
- A half-worn bed; one pillow; two cushions of ticking, with feathers; one rug; four sheets; four cushion-covers; two iron pots: three pewter dishes; one pewter basin; one iron roster; one schuryn spoo...
- Dutch Furniture. Part 5
- The doors conceal shelves, and above are two drawers with drop handles. There are pieces similar to this to be found in the United States in private houses as well as in museums. This cabinet belongs ...
- Chapter III. Chippendale
- In studying the various periods into which different makes of furniture may be divided, the accentuating of one point, say of ornaments or the structural peculiarities, is noted, not as being sharply ...
- Chippendale. Part 2
- At the time Chippendale published his book he was about forty years old, as it is generally supposed that he was born about 1710. Worcester is given as the place of his birth, and authorities state th...
- Chippendale. Part 3
- He not only designed many houses for wealthy patrons and altered many others, but he was afterward appointed landscape gardener at Kew, and knighted. The older Chinese furniture which one sees in Eur...
- Chippendale. Part 4
- In the next forty years fashions changed, - they changed slowly in those days, - and among other things laid at the door of Good Queen Anne may be added the hoop-skirt. Flowered and damask gowns wer...
- Chippendale. Part 5
- Card-tables were also made in great varieties and numbers by this same maker, and his graceful designs were copied by other and less well-known makers, so that these tables, at least in Chippendale s...
- Chippendale. Part 6
- Chippendale never used inlay on any of his pieces, preferring to produce the decoration by carving. In his very ornate carvings we have mentioned the long-billed bird, the falling-water effect, and th...
- Chippendale. Part 7
- To sum up, then, briefly, Chippendale's peculiarities may be expressed as follows: He used the ball-and-claw foot with the cabriole leg: this was succeeded by the straight leg. The tops of his chair...
- Chapter IV. Adam, Sheraton, Empire
- THE increased market offered to English merchants in the colonies, now more prosperous, produced in quick succession several cabinet-makers who worked in a different style from Chippendale, and made m...
- Adam, Sheraton, Empire. Part 2
- Some of these pieces were most elaborate and had intricate machinery to work them. A graceful, classical urn of wood, touched on the right spot, would open and disclose a basin and ewer, while a writi...
- Adam, Sheraton, Empire. Part 3
- He claims, and indeed with absolute correctness, to unite elegance with utility and blend the useful with the agreeable. In Figure 31 is shown one of a pair of card-tables, Hepplewhite design, made...
- Adam, Sheraton, Empire. Part 4
- Eighty-four families kept carriages in 1772, and writing as late as 1802, Dr. Michaud calls Philadelphia At present the largest, the handsomest, and the most populous city of the United States. The s...
- Adam, Sheraton, Empire. Part 5
- These cylinder-topped pieces were designed as early as 1792. In furniture, as in art, there are no absolutely abrupt changes, but one style is overshadowed by another as Chippendale gradually overca...
- Adam, Sheraton, Empire. Part 6
- After the French Revolution of 1790 furniture became markedly different. Greek models were chosen once more; the tripod became a favorite support. Mahogany was freely used, but so were coarse woods, i...
- Chapter V. Colonial And Later Periods
- UNDER the broad head of Colonial Furniture may really be classed all the movables and chattels' which belonged to the early settlers, while to be entirely correct, this characterization belongs only ...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 2
- Not only did English ships bring on every voyage the best that England afforded, but Dutch traders, too, crowded in with their own goods, and others besides from the East. The inventories mention Dut...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 3
- Mr. Palfrey says in his History of New England that Whitfield's house at Guilford, Mass., built in 1639, is the oldest house standing now in New England. There were three stone houses built at Guild...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 4
- The social life in Philadelphia in Revolutionary times was easy and agreeable, consisting of the original Quaker families and another class connected with the government, and these two gave the tone t...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 5
- The following also appeared in many issues of the paper. Mahogany Furniture, 3 elegant desks & book cases, 1 chest upon chest of drawers, 1 lady's dressing-chest & bookcase, 3 desks & 1 pr. card tab...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 6
- They earlier used carpets, wall-papers, foreign milliners, dressmakers, Windsor chairs, glass utensils, jewelry, dentistry, watches, umbrellas, stage-playbills, etc. Windsor chairs were advertised i...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 7
- - They are such abominable ill husbands that, though their country be overrun with wood, yet they have all their wooden ware from England, their cabinets, chairs, tables, stools, chests, boxes, cart-...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 8
- Andrew Faneuil died in 1738, and his favourite nephew and chief heir, Peter Faneuil, did not hesitate, on account of the cost, to have an elaborate and seemly funeral. Three thousand pairs of gloves w...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 9
- Candlewood, as pine knots were called, was burned in the fireplace on long winter evenings. The manufacture of home-made candles was one of the tests by which the careful housewife was distinguished, ...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 10
- Twenty-five years later the British officers quartered in New York made life there very gay. Fox-huntingwas practiced till 1781, and was advertised in the Royal Gazette as taking place on Ascot Heat...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 11
- William Melbourn advertises also, in 1774, over a hundred items, among them are the following, showing that small wares were easily to be obtained: White and green ivory table and desert knives an...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 12
- The inventory does not state his business, but we trust from appearances that he kept a public. Another list reads: Three cupboards of Dutch make as good as new, also three large Bibles i Dutch a...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 13
- An unusually elegant example of the French bed is the one given in Figure 63. This bed is of rosewood, with legs of splendidly carved dolphins, and on the side rails and rolling ends are very rich orm...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 14
- Game and wild fowl abounded in the woods, and the rivers were full of fish. There is on record a single catch in one night of 6,000 shad and 90 salmon, six men being at work. Each householder was requ...
- Colonial And Later Periods. Part 15
- The work of domestic furniture-makers has often been referred to in this work, and in Figure 69 are given examples of three chairs, all of them mahogany the two on the left being in Sheraton style, an...
- Chapter VII. French Furniture
- The glory of the French Renaissance had begun to wane when Louis XIII. came to the throne in 1614, and by the time of his death it 1643 it had become hardly more than a tradition. It strongest period ...
- French Furniture. Part 2
- Consider the life of one of these courtiers under the reicm of Louis XIV. Here is the routine of the Due de La Rochefoucauld, Master of the Hounds: - He never missed the king's rising or retiring, b...
- French Furniture. Part 3
- The tapestries worked late in the seventeenth century and early in the eighteenth, before the spirit of commercialism had been suffered to encroach on what up to that time had been carefully fostered ...
- French Furniture. Part 4
- The tapestry covered pieces shown belong to the Waring Galleries, London. The best-known name of any one man who worked in furniture during the splendid reign of Louis XIV. was of Andre-Charles Boul...
- French Furniture. Part 5
- When a princess of France married it was no uncommon thing for the laces on her bed-spreads and linens to reach the sum of $100,000. The frills on her personal linen added $25,000 more. The ruffle on ...
- French Furniture. Part 6
- In 1770 two coaches were sent to Vienna for Marie Antoinette. The work of the embroiderer was selected to embellish their interiors, and the description of them is given by Bachaumont: They were two...
- French Furniture. Part 7
- The new conditions in France wrought changes in every detail of life. Simplicity, so called, was becoming the watchword, and once more antique models were sought for forms and decorations. Under the E...
- Chapter VIII. Musical Instruments
- THE evolution of the piano from the clavichord occupied the attention of musicians for over three hundred years, or from 1404, when the earliest record occurs, to 1720, when Cristofori's piano was com...
- Musical Instruments. Part 2
- The piano was shuffled out of the Ducal Palace, much as some of our interesting relics have been shuffled out of the White House, and offered at auction.* *The writer has seen a very beautiful carved...
- Musical Instruments. Part 3
- In 1752 the vestry of St. Phillip's Church, Charleston, sent to London for an organist. The parish guaranteed him £50 sterling. He was to have the privilege of teaching the harpsichord or spinet, whic...
- Musical Instruments. Part 4
- S. Howe published in 1804 the Farmer's Evening Entertainment, and in it gives directions for beating time: To beat crotchets in common Time, let the fingers fall on the table six inches, then brin...
- Musical Instruments. Part 5
- The harp was not so often seen as other instruments, on account both of the great cost of the instrument and of the difficulty of tuning it. It was not until 1720 that the pedal harp was invented by a...
- Musical Instruments. Part 6
- Madame Malibran, who achieved such a success in opera in New York about 1825, used to accompany herself on the harp when she sang in response to an encore. But it can never be considered a popular ins...
- Chapter IX. Clocks
- CONTRIVANCES for the measurement of time are of such antiquity that the first such implement is wrapped in the mysteries of a forgotten past. Before any mechanical form had been invented by which the ...
- Clocks. Part 2
- In 1835 the old works were removed, and a set of works put in which had been made in 1690 by Villiamy, for a clock in the Queen's Palace, St. James' Park. As this clock was not powerful enough to driv...
- Clocks. Part 3
- They were so unusual that they were worn ostentatiously round the neck hanging to a chain. In an old play called A Mad World, My Masters !, one of the characters says Ah, by my troth, sir, beside...
- Clocks. Part 4
- To the best clocks in England it was usual to apply the gridiron pendulum of Harrison or the mercurial pendulum of Graham. The length of the pendulum of most clocks made before 1800 was 39 inches; tha...
- Clocks. Part 5
- The ornaments which originally decorated the top are missing, but otherwise it is perfect and is in admirable condition. Its period is about 1800. This clock belongs to Dr. George W. Goler, of Rochest...
- Clocks. Part 6
- The next improvement was substituting springs for weights. This had been done in Europe for two hundred years, but only with the most costly parlour clocks, and the springs were equal to the best watc...
- Clocks. Part 7
- PATENT CLOCKS Patented By Eli Terry And Made and Sold by Seth Thomas plymouth mass. warranted if well used. The faces of all three are painted on tin, the two Bristol clocks having ornamentation of...
- Chapter X. Handles, Feet, Stuffs, Etc
- In the manufacture of furniture at one time or another nearly every variety of wood has been used, if not for the body of the frame, then for its enrichment, and every quarter of the globe has been la...
- Handles, Feet, Stuffs, Etc. Part 2
- There was a great demand for these opal glass rosettes. Very large ones held back the window curtains, smaller ones were used to support the mirrors, besides those on the furniture. About this same ti...
- Handles, Feet, Stuffs, Etc. Part 3
- This Spanish foot retained its popularity a long time, appearing on many varieties of chairs almost as late as 1750. It was associated with cane, rush, leather, and stuff bottoms, was seen on arm and ...
- Handles, Feet, Stuffs, Etc. Part 4
- The best old furniture which is to be found in the United States is of this period, which was succeeded by what may be denominated the black-walnut age, the chief characteristic of which was abundant ...
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